<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0"><channel><title><![CDATA[Hearts With Hope News & Events]]></title><description><![CDATA[Articles]]></description><link>http://www.heartswithhope.org/sNews16/</link><copyright><![CDATA[Copyright Hearts With Hope News & Events]]></copyright><generator>sNews CMS</generator><item><title><![CDATA[La Republica - 10-23-2007]]></title><description><![CDATA[  Haga clic para aquí leer.  ]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 22 Jan 2008 00:05:11 +0000</pubDate><link>http://www.heartswithhope.org/sNews16/artculos-de-noticias/la-republica-10232007/</link><guid>http://www.heartswithhope.org/sNews16/artculos-de-noticias/la-republica-10232007/</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[Correo - 10-23-2007]]></title><description><![CDATA[  Haga clic para aquí leer.  ]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 22 Jan 2008 00:00:46 +0000</pubDate><link>http://www.heartswithhope.org/sNews16/artculos-de-noticias/correo-10232007/</link><guid>http://www.heartswithhope.org/sNews16/artculos-de-noticias/correo-10232007/</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[diario Noticias - 10-23-2007]]></title><description><![CDATA[  Haga clic para aquí leer.   ]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 21 Jan 2008 23:49:51 +0000</pubDate><link>http://www.heartswithhope.org/sNews16/artculos-de-noticias/diario-noticias-10232007/</link><guid>http://www.heartswithhope.org/sNews16/artculos-de-noticias/diario-noticias-10232007/</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[Welcome]]></title><description><![CDATA[Welcome to the Hearts with Hope News & Events page. All articles and events are listed on the left hand side.]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 09 Dec 2007 20:51:36 +0000</pubDate><link>http://www.heartswithhope.org/sNews16/home/welcome/</link><guid>http://www.heartswithhope.org/sNews16/home/welcome/</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[Arequipa – Peru 2007]]></title><description><![CDATA[  CONGENITAL CARDIOLOGY TODAY   article  by   Dr Illan, PhD. & Dan Levi, MD      
      
  On January 15, 2006 an enthusiastic group of pediatric healthcare 
professionals and volunteers arrived in Arequipa, Peru’s second largest city. 
Their mission: Help as many children with congenital heart defects as possible 
by performing heart surgeries and using transcatheter procedures that will 
minimize risk, costs and recovery time and maximize the benefits to the 
children. The mission, staffed predominately by doctors and nurses from Mattel 
Children’s Hospital at UCLA, did most of their work at the Nacional Carlos 
Alberto Seguin Escobedo Hospital in Arequipa. Peru. Two weeks later the happy, 
but tired, team boarded a plane homebound to the USA, realizing that their 
success was the result of not only good fortune, but also good planning. Using 
the Hearts with Hope Mission as an example, this paper will detail some of the 
key ingredients for successful medical missions to third world countries.   
  The Los Angeles based Hearts with Hope Foundation (also known as Corazones 
con Esperanza) was founded in 2003 and is supported by individual donors and by 
major cardiac device manufacturers. It is headed by Dr. Juan Carlos Alejos, an 
interventional and transplant cardiologist at UCLA. The mission of Hearts with 
Hope is to provide medical and humanitarian aid to children with congenital 
heart disease and their families throughout Latin America. Dr. Alejos has led 
three previous missions to South America. Direct contacts with the health care 
community led to the fourth mission taking place in Arequipa. This is the fourth 
and largest team that has been led on behalf of the foundation. At the end of 
the two week stay in Arequipa, the team had performed 23 transcatheter 
interventions (in children aged from 2 months to 15 years) ranging from 
valvuloplasty to ASD and PDA closures to stenting of native coarctations. During 
the second week, ten surgical cases were performed by Dr. Christian Pizarro. To 
screen, select and follow-up patients, over 200 echoes were performed.   
  All the procedures were completed as planned and all patients were discharged 
in excellent condition with minimal hospital stays. The mission marked the first 
time for transcatheter closure of ASDs (six ASDs were closed with devices 
donated by AGA) and PDAs (NitOcclud devices were donated by pfm Inc) to be 
performed on children in southern Peru. Pediatric open heart surgery had also 
never before been performed in this region. The milestones were widely reported 
on the front page of local papers.   
    Mission Team     
      
  The cadre of workers on the Hearts with Hope Team included pediatric 
cardiologists Drs. Daniel Levi, Greg Perens, Juan Alejos and Josephine Isabel- 
Jones, who performed most of the interventional procedures and echoes; pediatric 
anesthesiologists Drs. Mike Sopher and Swati Patel; cardiac perfusionist Juan 
Obado; cardiac ICU nurses Denise Brown, Jennifer Correa, Ai-Jin Lee and Giselle 
Mata; and OR and cath lab technicians and assistants Samuel Olmeda, Chris Gatica 
and Annie Meyer. As mentioned above, Dr. Christian Pizzarro, a congenital 
cardiac surgeon from the Nemours Cardiac Center at the Dupont Hospital for 
Children performed all of the surgical procedures. Finally, Dr. Jessica 
Greenwood coordinated the movement of patients from the echo diagnostics to the 
Catheter Lab and occasionally the OR. Yolanda Peneda, a family liaison with the 
Medical Home Project at UCLA recreated her role in Arequipa and dealt with 
families, insurance issues and coordinating catheterization lab procedures.   
  The UCLA team also included medical students, a photographer and several 
volunteers without specific medical expertise. Having a large and diverse team, 
over 20 in total, the Hearts with Hope Team was able to benefit every pediatric 
hospital and orphanage in Arequipa through a variety of charitable, educational 
and medical activities. By having more than “just enough” time and personnel, 
there could be an emphasis on education as well as patient care. The doctors, 
nurses and perfusionists were able to hold seminars on the caring for children 
with congenital heart disease at both Hospital Nacional and Goyeneche Hospital. 
Each team member had a well defined primary role and each one also worked hard 
to accomplish specific goals during the time in Arequipa. Without volunteers and 
students in addition to doctors, nurses, surgeons and other specialists, our 
primary and secondary goals could not have been accomplished.   
    Domestic Financial and Industrial Support    
  &nbsp;The willingness of all companies approached to help with our mission 
was perhaps the most impressive aspect of the Hearts with Hope Mission. Even 
given last minute requests, pfm-Ag Inc. donated eleven NitOcclud devices, AGA 
Medical donated six ASO devices and delivery systems, and Johnson and Johnson/Cordis 
Corporation donated a wide range of equipment for use in both surgeries and 
transcatheter procedures. In addition to donating pacemakers, computers to 
interrogate pacemakers, prosthetic Hancock II heart valves and pacemaker leads, 
Medtronic allowed one of their present employees (Annie Meyer) to come on the 
mission. Because of generous cooperation of the airline LAN Peru, the UCLA 
medical team was able to transport directly to Arequipa about 50 massive duffel 
bags full of medicines, medication, transcather and surgical materials as well 
as a dozen carefully packed boxes with sensitive instruments. Although the 
team’s plane tickets were purchased with money raised by the Hearts with Hope 
foundation silent auction fundraiser, all of the catheters, syringes, guide 
wires, transcatheter devices, medicines, pacemakers, monitoring equipment and 
other supplies needed for the planned procedures were transported to Peru on the 
commercial airliner without additional charge. (All unused supplies were 
inventoried and left in the hospital – we came back with nothing but gifts for 
our families).  
    International Staffing     
  International support is most important for the identification of potential 
patients and for the follow-up of these patients after the mission. It is 
important for a pediatric interventionalist or cardiothoracic surgeon to prepare 
for a mission with detailed knowledge of the patients to be treated.   
  In the case of the Hearts with Hope mission, a dedicated team of adult 
cardiologists, intensivists, nurses and operating room technicians were 
available, motivated and prepared to assist in the Hearts with Hope Mission. 
Drs. Pedro Torres, Alejandro Basso and Nassip Llerena were able to send a DVD of 
ECHOs to us. Having a database of ECHOs several months prior to the trip was 
invaluable in preparing the equipment and personnel needed for every potential 
candidate for intervention by our team. In addition to screening more patients 
for the next mission, these same doctors (adult cardiologists by training) are 
now following up on children who had surgical and transcatheter interventions.  
  Given the proper financial support and cooperation from an international 
airline, it is possible to bring nearly all the equipment and medicines needed 
for a medical mission in pediatric cardiology. However, no one wants to bring 
“sand to the beach.” Valuable resources can be saved if the appropriate contacts 
exist at the international site. To further insure that only necessary equipment 
is transported while no critical items are excluded, an advance trip by a 
knowledgeable “scout” can prove invaluable. The scout would be well advised to 
take many pictures and even video footage to share with the volunteer team prior 
to its departure. These visual aids and available equipment lists will allow 
each physician to thoroughly visualize their planned procedures and list all the 
devices, facilities, medicines and support required to successfully complete 
each intervention.   
    Properly Equipped Location     
  In addition to the dedicated and competent staff at the hospital in Arequipa 
Peru, the hospital was adequately equipped to support the mission. Anesthesia 
carts, ventilators, single plane fluoroscopy and a basic cardiac operating room 
were available and reserved for our use. Missions like the Hearts with Hope can 
maximize their impact by serving regions where transcatheter and surgical 
congenital cardiac interventions are not available for children, yet where some 
basic OR facilities and diagnostic and imaging equipment are in place. The 
Arequipa hospital was well equipped for cardiac surgery for adults and the 
resident cardiologists and surgeons limited their work to adult patients. The 
adult facilities were easily modified to provide the basic equipment needed for 
pediatric ICU care and pediatric catheter-based and cardiothoracic surgical 
interventions.   
    Charitable/Good Will Component     
  The Hearts with Hope team developed special ties to several children’s 
hospitals and orphanages. One volunteer, Bill Sears, himself a heart transplant 
recipient five years ago, was the medical team’s goodwill ambassador. Prior to 
the Arequipa mission, Sears collected several large duffels full of small toys, 
coloring books with crayons, yo-yos and other common toys. With help from local 
volunteers, Sears delighted the local children by handing out hundreds of toys 
at several hospitals and orphanages. Dr. Alejos and team coordinator Jolanda 
Peneda took the time to assess the most urgent equipment needs of the hospitals 
in the area, with the intent of supplying the critical equipment with help from 
US companies and the Hearts with Hope Foundation. Three more large duffels were 
filled with freshly laundered hand-me-down children’s’ clothes donated by 
American families. These were also distributed and fitted to grateful children 
by local associates of the Foundation. Medical missions certainly have the power 
to spread goodwill into even remote parts of our world.  
    Education    
      
  Local surgeons participated in most of the interventional cardiac procedures 
that were performed at The Hospital Nacional Carlos Alberto Seguin Escobedo. The 
cardiac surgeons who routinely operated on adult hearts were eager to observe 
pediatric repair of congenital lesions including, Tetralogy of Fallot, Double 
Outlet Right Ventricle, Ventricular Septal Defect with a SubAortic Membrane and 
Atrial Septal Defects. While the teaching extended into the ICU and nursing 
staff as well, it always involved both teams of professionals learning from one 
another. Our team was also fortunate to have eager UCLA undergraduate pre-med 
students on our trip. While these students were a great help to our mission 
(they consistently brought pizza to the on-call doctors), they were also 
provided with a unique educational experience. Dr. Greg Perens, a UCLA fellow in 
pediatric cardiology, described his experience as the best learning experience 
of his fellowship, “These missions are the ultimate cultural and medical 
learning opportunities.”   
    Fun and Recreation     
  The mission to Arequipa was not all work for the Americans. A series of 
parties, dinners, receptions, shopping excursions and an optional weekend 
sidetrip to Cusco and Machu Picchu all added an element of fun and bonding among 
the Americans and their Peruvian hosts. We can assume that these recreational 
and social activities were an extra bonus to the team members adding to the 
satisfaction they all felt with the impact of their medical endeavors. The 
social and professional links established between the American volunteers and 
the Peruvian doctors and nurses will surely serve as a strong foundation for 
future, perhaps annual missions from Los Angeles to Arequipa.  
  Upon arrival the team was treated to a tour of the town. Perched in the Andes 
foothills at an elevation of 7700 ft and surrounded by snow capped volcanic 
peaks, the town is known for the pearly white volcanic rock, known as sillar, 
used in many of its buildings. The team was treated to both welcome and farewell 
barbeques. Complete with traditional Inca music, each of these festive meals 
included dancing, singing and “pisco sours” (the local drink). While shopping 
for bargains, drinking Chilean wine and karaoke were favorite evening 
activities, seventeen members of the mission traveled over the weekend to Cuzco 
with a visit to the extensive archeological site of Machu Picchu.  
  &nbsp;Perhaps most memorable is the friendliness and gratefulness of the 
parents, children and the entire Arequipa community. Tears of gratitude flowed 
freely at the EsSalud Hospital as Dr. Alejos and his team bid farewell to the 
dozens of children and parents whose lives they improved and who can now not 
only hope but actually realize life for their children with healthy hearts.  
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 09 Dec 2007 18:54:55 +0000</pubDate><link>http://www.heartswithhope.org/sNews16/dr-daniel-levi/arequipa-peru-2007/</link><guid>http://www.heartswithhope.org/sNews16/dr-daniel-levi/arequipa-peru-2007/</guid></item></channel></rss>